


On Continuity and Details in SPN S2 Episodes

by yourlibrarian



Series: Supernatural Reviews [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s02e11 Playthings, Episode: s02e14 Born Under a Bad Sign, Episode: s02e17 Heart, Gen, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 09:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Originally posted on September 24, 2007 and November 12, 2007
Series: Supernatural Reviews [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202249
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	On Continuity and Details in SPN S2 Episodes

Although the episode "Heart" had emotional impact, there are various things that don't work well in it, and perhaps worst of all there is really no follow through after its events.

The women who have come off best in SPN haven't had any romantic storylines. Ellen, for example, has done well by not being in any kind of romantic storyline. I don't think the show (for whatever reason) does either convincing romance or does at all well with romantic storylines. As much as people liked it, I thought "Heart" was a mess. And as much as people seem to dislike "Route 666" I didn't think it any worse than many of the S1 episodes, but I also didn't think that Dean and Cassie really showed what had worked for them. Of course, Cassie tells us it's the sex and the fighting but, reading between the lines, one can assume that there were larger issues of compatibility there. For example, would Dean being interested in a long term love interest with motivations so contrary to his own? Cassie, his only canon love interest, was also in a position of helping people because they deserve it. Although SPN doesn't do much with characterization in most episodes, it could be argued Cassie was written to be a journalistic crusader for equal rights, to help the helpless, and expose corruption. This would have complemented Dean’s people deserve to be saved attitude. I think Dean respected and liked her, and she does raise some interesting possibilities about how he likes to be challenged, but beyond that it's hard to say what made Cassie special to him.

I had two main problems with Heart. The first was that the choice of a werewolf for the MotW was a little problematic. I know that Madison was a mirror for Sam, someone who didn't know she had the capability to be evil and a killer, and Sam's effort to save her was as much to prove he himself could be saved. Perhaps because I come from the Buffyverse fandom, the idea that she couldn't and death was the only option seemed absurdly negative. Sam said it himself earlier in the season -- we all have the capability of killing in the right circumstances. That doesn't mean everyone should be wiped out because they have that potential. It seemed the main reason Madison has to die is because we must continue the format of the show, and therefore Sam and Dean must move on. Why otherwise couldn't they have stayed, helped her adapt, and studied werewolves more closely to see what could work? Of course that brings up the fact that we still don't know how being a werewolf works in the SPN verse because Madison didn't change at sundown, and they suggested it might have to do with her sleeping. But another time she changed while tied up in the chair so it's just not clear. Which in my opinion meant they should have stayed to research her but that's not going to happen on this show.

The second problem for me was that I had little idea why Madison was someone Sam involved himself with. Given that he's failed to do so in 2 seasons (not even in the cursory way Dean does regularly), one would have to assume there was something quite special about her that could have attracted him so quickly. He's even given a line suggesting why -- she has an amazing book collection that suggests she's intelligent and he finds her extraordinary. But we really don't get to see either one (shouldn't we have had a shot of Sam browsing her books? Or getting caught up in reading them since I know I would have?) We don't even get to see them talking until after he's told her that.

It would have made some psychological sense if the reason Sam lets himself get involved is because of her affliction, not in spite of it. He feels himself to be damaged goods in both his uncertain future and his destructive past, and as she already has issues of her own, she's a good choice. He's unlikely to damage her further. However that's not the way it plays out. He's clearly attracted before he knows she's a werewolf, and he thinks afterwards that he's cured her. I think the issue of consequences both in terms of what they do to others and even what they do to one another is so often dropped. The only moment they really seem to grapple with that is at the end of Bloodlust when Dean questions himself and John for never considering that they were shooting first and not even asking questions later. Of course, for all we know John did ask questions but I'd guess he wouldn't pass that on to Dean because he'd never want Dean to hesitate. Better a harmless supernatural thing die than his son. So the idea of trying to save Madison is not part of what "saving people" ever means in their family business.

Another jarring sequence is the levity of "Hollywood Babylon" after Heart. On the one hand, I buy Dean's suggestion that they have a sort of vacation after those events (and they're already in San Francisco, it's not like a drive down the coast is that much for them). Plus Sam actually suggests in a throwaway line in Heart that they next go to Disneyland, and Dean's been wanting them to take a break since Croatoan. But given what Sam's done it does seem rather swept under the rug.

Also speaking of a major set-up that really didn't get much follow-through, is Nightshifter. It's pretty important for keeping the other arc -- of their being fugitives -- alive. But time-wise in the series it could have come earlier than it did. The episode was so tightly written that there's no way something like the drunk scene in Playthings could have been fit in. So I'm guessing that's another reason that it was put in Playthings instead. I would guess that originally there might have been a less heavy-handed scene in there. After all, in the preceding Hunted it's not like Sam isn't at pains to save himself for the very reason he begs Dean to. And after Croatoan, Sam should know Dean won't follow through. But at least one thing in Playthings does work there, which is that the good sister sacrifices herself for the evil sister who she's kept away all these years to save her grandchild. It's an interesting parallel to what's going on with Dean and Sam where Sam's trying to save people but, if Dean has anything to say about it, not at the cost of his life.

Speaking of Croatoan, one thing I was confused by was how it seemed to drop the demon virus issue. I had assumed Sam was immune because he was already infected with demon blood and that this meant he couldn't be possessed. But obviously in BUaBS he was so... It seemed pretty obvious from the commentary discussion in the S2 DVDs that very little of the arc stuff is plotted out in advance and the episode ideas are, for the most part, random. So that whole bit in Plaything probably seems extraneous because it was extraneous in terms of the episode's origin. And the odd motivation issue in Croatoan may or may not be part of something larger. On the one hand I could see it being part of the demon war in S3, but the whole thing about testing Sam's immunity still makes no sense. I mean, if it happened back in Roanoke, the demons already know that the virus will work. Why wipe out a whole town and alert the Winchesters to the issue just to test Sam's immunity? Why not just attack Sam out of the blue and find out? And why does the virus then disappear? Does it mean the infection wears off or does it mean it just becomes integrated in the body?

It makes even less sense when Meg tells Dean in Born Under a Bad Sign that her actions are not part of the larger plan. (And the whole anti-possession charm Bobby gives them at the end? Why is every hunter not wearing one of those? After what happened to John why are Sam and Dean not wearing one already? I mean, really.) So anyway, the odd lurch of dramatic to comedic episodes seems to have more to do with meta reasons (mix up the genres, give the actors a break from the heavy stuff) than it does with providing an organic storyline or following up on things that have been set up before.

I'm guessing that Sam is still possessed all the way through Born Under a Bad Sign. In the car at the end he says he had moments where he knew what was going on, specifically killing the hunter. And perhaps attacking Jo, though that could simply be something he was told about after. So he didn't actually see everything, which seems different from Meg who knew a good bit about what was going on, and from John who was apparently completely lucid. According to the YED, John was screaming and fighting inside him. One could argue that in Meg's case the longer a demon possesses a body the more aware the host becomes, but John was only possessed a few days compared to Sam's over a week. And from what Meg says to Dean when he awakens at Bobby's, she meant to kill him, yet if Sam even realized it he doesn't say so.

Kripke acknowledges that the YED kids storyline was supposed to go on longer but because he felt the stories were _visually_ boring he wanted to wrap them up. Now I'd always felt that the S2 finale was rushed and underdeveloped but I had assumed it was because the show was on such a bubble that they wanted to tie things up in case it wasn't renewed. Instead it seems it was more about killing that story and moving on to something else.

But I was particularly struck in the WIaWSNB commentary on how the story came, not from one of many (to me) obvious issues, which was to explore the family, explore Dean as a character, develop Mary and Jess, or do the ultimate "Oh Dean!" story at this point in time (which, props to them, I thought it was a pretty solid episode). No, rather it was Kripke rejecting idea after idea because he was going to be directing and wanted to have some super-special story as his directorial debut. Which also led to the confirmation of another suspicion of mine which is that he'd rarely been on set, (something which always bugs me in RPS stories where he seems to be ubiquitous).

Kripke also seemed to think it was the absence of women on the show and the constant co-presence of Jared and Jensen that seemed to bring all the subtext about that fans glom onto, rather than realizing it's the relationship between them which spawns it (and would make it present regardless of how many women were on the show). Which is somewhat funny because he talks in the commentary about how difficult it was for J2 to play estranged brothers because they were so comfortable with and relied so much on their close bond as an emotional centerpiece of the series and their work -- yet he doesn't consciously seem to make the connection. Also from an RPS POV it would make an interesting ficlet to discuss what that was like, when they were supposed to be playing distanced and indifferent and struggling with it. (I have to say, I don't think they succeeded).


End file.
